Residents feel more secure

The survey was carried out by questioning 1'600 residents in the Balearic Islands (800 in Majorca, 400 in Minorca and 400 in Ibiza and Formentera) and concluded that the perception of insecurity has dropped in all islands in 2004 if compared against statistics from 2002.

The percentage of people who have been “victims” (perception of having suffered a personal attacks or breaking and entering) in Majorca has decreased from 33.23 percent in 2002 to 30'86 percent in 2004. In Minorca there was a slight decrease, 24.83 percent to 24.35 percent, and in Ibiza, 38.66 percent to 37'40 percent.

In spite of these decreases, residents are now more worried about their safety regarding “petty crimes”, such as small thefts, damage to cars and vandalism, said the sociologist Antonio Tarabini, who added that these crimes are all associated with drug addictions. He also noted that for the first time “all” residents are worried about domestic violence, which has become a great problem recently.

The survey found that the biggest problems were crimes to vehicles (robbery of valuables inside the vehicle, vandalism acts or vehicle bumps and crashes by other vehicle owners), which was reported by 16.25 percent of those interviewed in Majorca, 13.1 percent of those in Minorca, 17.8 percent in Ibiza and 11.2 percent in Formentera.

Six percent of people interviewed in Majorca had been victims of a personal attack, in Minorca this was 3.65 percent, 6.4 percent in Ibiza and 3.8 percent in Formentera. Whereas, five percent of people in Majorca had been victims of a household crime, 5.85 percent in Minorca, 8.6 percent in Ibiza and 5.5 percent in Formentera.

The survey found that the reason for the crimes were mainly due to inadequate laws and inefficent police intervention.
Other reasons were cited as unemployment, immigration, drug addiction and the education system.